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Monday, January 11, 2016

"Tech startup AltSchool wants to push the boundaries of classroom data
collection and personalized learning. But are schools ready for the big
data revolution?" summarizes Benjamin Herold, staff writer for Education Week and writes for the Digital Education blog.

AltSchool CEO Max Ventilla, standing, and CTO Bharat Mediratta hope to bring the big-data and analytics techniques of their former employer, Google, to the K-12 arena.Photo: Education Week

Imagine classrooms outfitted with cameras that run constantly,
capturing each child's every facial expression, fidget, and social
interaction, every day, all year long.

Then imagine on the ceilings of those rooms infrared cameras,
documenting the objects that every student touches throughout the day,
and microphones, recording every word that each person utters.

Picture now the children themselves wearing Fitbit-like devices
that track everything from their heart rates to their time between
meals. For about a quarter of the day, the students use Chromebooks and
learning software that track their every click and keystroke.

What you're seeing is the future of K-12 education through the eyes of Max Ventilla, the CEO of AltSchool, a Bay Area startup
that represents the most aggressive, far-reaching foray into the world
of big data and analytics that the K-12 education sector has seen to
date.

Eventually, Ventilla envisions AltSchool technology facilitating an
exponential increase in the amount of information collected on students
in school, all in service of expanding the hands-on, project-based model
of learning in place at the six private school campuses the company
currently operates in Silicon Valley and New York City.

He sees all those torrents of data flowing from the classroom into
the cloud, where AltSchool engineers will have built systems for
merging the disparate streams into a single river of information.
AltSchool software and algorithms created by Silicon Valley's top
developers and data scientists would then search the waters for patterns
in each student's engagement level, moods, use of classroom resources,
social habits, language and vocabulary use, attention span, academic
performance, and more.

The resulting insights—say, that 6th graders perform better in
math after exercising, or that the girls in a particular science class
are bored because boys use the lab equipment more frequently, or that
Johnny is using new vocabulary words in conversations with his
friends—would be fed to teachers, parents, and students via AltSchool's
digital learning platform and mobile app, which are currently being
tested. The information would be accompanied by scheduling tips,
recommendations for more gender-neutral science activities, and a
playlist of assignments customized to each student.

How those suggestions are used, and whether they make a difference
in how well each student learns, would also be tracked, creating a
never-ending feedback loop of insights, experiments, recommendations,
and product tweaks.

"We don't want to improve some aspects of what schools do. We want
a different kind of universe in which schools can exist 30 years from
now," said Ventilla, a 35-year-old Yale University graduate who
previously worked as the head of personalization at
online-services-giant Google.

For better or worse, it's not just pie in the sky talk...

What Are Big Data and Analytics? The term "big data" is generally used to describe data sets so
large they must be analyzed by computers. Usually, the purpose is to
find patterns and connections relating to human behavior and how complex
systems function.

Analytics generally refers to the process of collecting such data,
conducting those analyses, generating corresponding insights, and using
that new information to make (what proponents hope will be) smarter
decisions.

For years, public schools and ed-tech companies have experimented
with both, usually with two goals in mind: to better personalize
instruction, by customizing the learning experience to each student's
individual skills, abilities, and preferences; and to facilitate more
data-driven operational decisions.

Inside school systems, advances have been made. It's now common,
for example, for classrooms to use learning software and digital games
that generate extensive data that can be mined for evidence of student learning.
At the macro level, districts routinely analyze large data sets
containing information on students' academic performance, attendance
patterns, and even involvement with other public agencies.
The results are used to predict which students are likely to become
disengaged or drop out of school, then to intervene accordingly, among
other purposes.

But experts say such initiatives have mostly resulted in small
pockets of innovation or incremental shifts to existing practices,
rather than systemic transformation.

One big reason: Big chunks of the data currently in use are either
stored on paper or in teachers' heads. And much of the digital
information in use is generated via students' on-screen and online
activity, which even those in the ed-tech world acknowledge can capture
only a limited slice of what constitutes real learning.

The net result is that school officials often settle for using
technology to meet basic compliance requirements, said Jeff Wayman, a
former educational researcher at Johns Hopkins University who now
consults with districts on effective data systems.

"Technology got schools to a point where they can get done the
things that have to get done," Wayman said. "But in their heart of
hearts, I think a lot of developers would say the technology is so much
more powerful than how it's being used."Read more...

AltSchool is a collaborative community of micro-schools that uses
outstanding teachers, deep research, and innovative tools to offer a
personalized, whole child learning experience for the next generation.

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Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.